Threadless: Accepted.... and then rejected.

I submitted this entry to Threadless about a week ago. At the time I thought I was onto a genuine winner, covering as I was the requisite bases of indie nerd, saccharine smiles and fresh fruit referencing. The design is a subtle allusion to the mnemonic used by guitar teachers across the apple eating world, instantly recognisable to those familiar with a six-string, beguiling and entrancing to anyone else (drummers, say).

But then once it went up, lenoircouture said:

"i thought they were the sticks for caramel apples waiting for the apple"

Which hurt a bit. But then imbrilliant said:

"i thought it was pasta."

and shakethesheets said:

"i thought they were chopsticks."

and then, after all that, MadMike twisted the knife by saying:

"I had no friggen idea what this was about."

What a tragedy.
My performance was so ridiculously low I got taken out of the running but two days in. Later I think I saw someone pointing and laughing at me in Costcutter.
If you want to see the whole sorry story, you can click on this below. It's what they give you to put on your blogs and myspaces to get you friends to vote for you, but for me, having lost, it's just a sad reminder of defeat. An advertisement for my failures.

But despite all that, this does represent a milestone: it's the first thing I've ever really made in Illustrator. See that pattern round the sound hole? (The bigger circle, behind the pasta) I made that pattern, all by myself. It's all quite neat and satisfying, but most excitingly it's quick: I sketched this idea on the bus and within an hour of my getting home, it was done and submitted. (Trust me, that's quick.)

All my posts are coming up in facebook now. Isn't that weird?